The Pune Police have swooped on two locations in Nashik and arrested two women associates of the drug don, Lalit Patil who was arrested by Mumbai Police from a place near Chennai, officials said here on Thursday.
The women were nabbed from their homes on the night of Wednesday-Thursday and then brought to Pune, where they will be produced before a Magistrate Court for remand this afternoon. They are identified as Pragya Kamble and Archana Nikam, and Patil is said to have kept his ill-earned wealth in safe custody with them in cash, silver and gold jewellery.
The Pune Police's feat came even as it faced flak for the alleged 'escape' of Patil from the Sassoon Hospital here on October 2 and was on the run in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu for 15 days before landing in the Mumbai Police's net early on Wednesday.
Are the women his girlfriends?
A police officer told media persons that as per the preliminary information, the two Nashik-based women, described as his 'girlfriends', were in constant touch with Patil during his cross-country drive dodging Mumbai and Pune police teams hot on his pursuit. While on the run for two weeks, Patil, a widower, spent a day with Archana Nikam, and then took Rs 25 lakh cash from both the women for his on-road expenses.
Later, he zoomed from Pune to Nashik to Dhule to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar via the Mumbai-Nagpur Samruddhi Expressway, then entered into Surat in south Gujarat, from there to Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. En route, Patil, sent to Mumbai Police custody till October 23, was helped by a network of his narcotics mafia contacts, and the police said they would track and probe them in the case which has triggered a huge political row in the state.
